Arc lamps provide excellent light yield, and are now beginning to be used in vehicle headlights instead of conventional filament lamps.
However, the use of lamps of this type is disadvantageous in that they need to be fed with electrical voltages that are high, and more particularly they need to be fed with a voltage of about ten thousand volts for triggering purposes, and a voltage of about 80 volts for maintaining the arc once it has been established.
It will therefore be understood that such lamps and their associated connectors must be handled with very considerable care in order to avoid any danger of electrocution, for example if the fingers of the user should accidentally come into contact with metal parts that convey lamp feed current.
In this respect, the major risk is that an unexpecting user accustomed over the years to using very low voltage filament lamps will quite simply fail to take any special precautions at all when handling this new type of lamp and its connector.
It is therefore necessary to ensure that such a user does not run any risk of electrocution.